This Study Guide consists of approximately 43 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more -
everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Great Short Works of Herman Melville.

Chapters 8 - 11 Summary

In The Lighning-rod Man, the narrator lives in a mountainous region, and during an intense thunderstorm, is visited by a door-to-door salesman of lightning rods. The salesman points out the concussive lightning storm outside, points out the elevation of the mountainside, and points out the exposed nature of the home. He then strongly urges the narrator to purchase a copper lightning rod to protect himself and his home. The salesman's technique involves acting desperately afraid of imminent electrocution because of the home's location within the storm. The narrator vituperates the salesman's fear, notes that lightning recently struck and destroyed a building sporting several lightning rods and that his own house without a lightning rod has never been struck in many years. The lightning-rod man departs without a sale, but in the ensuing weeks and months does a brisk business with the...